IFT First 2024: ICL Food Specialties highlights phosphates’ essential role in high-protein dairy F&B
30 Jul 2024 | ICL Food Specialties
High-protein F&B is trending on the US market, but these formulations require stabilization to maintain sensory appeal and manufacturing efficiency. Maria Tolchinsky, global segment leader of dairy and beverage at ICL Food Specialties, explains why phosphates are “essential” to high-protein dairy applications and why they can be challenging to replace with cleaner label solutions.
This is Missy Green with Food Ingredients first here at IFT 2024.
I'm here with Maria Tolchinsky, who's a global segment leader of dairy and beverage at ISCL Food Specialties.
Welcome, Maria.
Thank you, Missy.
So could you tell us a little bit about the protein fortified concepts that you have here at the show today?
Sure, great, I'd be happy to.
So we are showcasing two high protein dairy products.
This year we have a keto friendly iced coffee product which is high protein, no sugar, and has MCT oil, and then we also have a high protein frozen dessert which we're really excited about.
What was the inspiration behind this?
Dairy already has protein in it, right?
True, dairy does have protein in it, but we know that the consumers are really looking for a higher protein.
Products whether it's a beverage, an ice cream, or even a snack bar, and dairy proteins are a great way to add that extra protein.
So we are highlighting how you can use additional dairy protein to create these high protein products for consumers.
So the added protein is dairy protein.
The protein is dairy protein, usually it's like a whey protein isolate.
And these proteins come with some challenges, especially if you want to get more protein into these applications.
They can present both manufacturing and consumer preference challenges in terms of flavor and texture.
What are some of those manufacturing challenges?
So for example, in our high protein keto beverage that we're showcasing, one of the challenges we see a lot of our customers have with these types of products is age gelation or fouling.
So during processing when you have a lot of protein in the system and you're going through like a UHT, sometimes the protein will start to deposit in the UHT and then you'll get fouling where your production will slow down or you'll get charring and sometimes those bits will fall back into your products.
You'll have undesirable products.
So our technology, our phosphate technology helps prevent that manufacturing challenge of fouling.
The other thing that happens is sometimes when you have high protein.
And you're creating like a ready to drink beverage that you want to have shelf stable like a protein shake or something like that.
If you have high protein, they tarts to gel, so you'll get what's called aged gelation over shelf life, and that's when you get a thick sort of sediment at the bottom of your beverage which is undesirable for consumers.
It doesn't really shake back in very.
So again, some of our phosphate technology can prevent that aged gelation from happening and stabilizing that protein.
How hard is it to replace phosphate as an ingredient for some of these applications.
So our phosphate specialties products are pretty much formulated for these specific applications.
There are some challenges in terms of protein solubility, pH, and actually these manufacturing products, and our experts at our technical labs work with every.
To ensure that the phosphates that they are receiving are specifically designed for their application and their processing methodology, so it's fairly specialized what we do, and we have a lot of expertise in this area.
So I think phosphates are essential to these products.
OK, so you're not really looking for alternatives to phosphates.
In some cases, particularly for labels, customers might be interested in alternatives for phosphates, but when these high protein applications are so challenging, it does get tricky to find a solution that's phosphate free to stabilize these systems.
So right now I think it would be a challenge to find something.
So have you gotten requests for a different solution?
Sure, yeah, there are some customers that look for cleaner, simpler labels where they want to avoid certain ingredients on their label.
So we've had those conversations with customers.
We are actively looking and developing new technology for those applications you know and it really is situation dependent.
So if a customer comes to us and is looking for something, we can certainly work with them to try to create specific blends.
Or things like that to help them stabilize it, stabilize our systems, but it is on our radar.
But because of these high protein, especially the high dairy protein challenges, it is kind of important right now for us to consider phosphates as a solution.
It sounds like the people who are asking for this are also sort of the exception to the rule.
Yes, at this moment, yes, the key important characteristics.
Folks are looking for is really stability and functionality and consumer preference.
So imagine you buy a beverage and all of a sudden it has a big gel at the bottom of it.
As a consumer you'll be really disappointed.
So our customers are looking for ways to meet the consumer expectations and also make sure that in their processing they're not slowing down their process or experiencing these quality issues with charring and things like that.
